


Pluto

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa), M/M, Mildly Bittersweet, Positive ending, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29519550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: And even though I'd always dreamed of going to the staaaaaaaars...♫
Relationships: Hoshi Ryoma/Momota Kaito
Kudos: 8





	Pluto

“I’ll be thinking about you every day when I’m up there, you got that?”

Ryoma doesn’t want to doubt Kaito.

At the same time, he can’t help it.

He knows _Kaito_ believes it - being everything Ryoma isn’t, as always, right up to his broad and glowing smile and voice that booms as he talks to someone he loves even before he sets off --

\-- possibly forever. Ryoma doesn’t know much about space, but he knows about being gone for a while, losing yourself with your sense of time.

He turns away because he has to, looking up to the sky over the school. The candy stick in his mouth wiggles as he chews his lip, looking for exactly the right words to say - admittance to the cause of the wire-sharp wrapping-and-squeezing in his heart without admittance to the pain itself; for him to feel such things, period, is nothing new, let alone to an extent to fuss Kaito over. He takes a breath to prepare those words, as he tugs down the brim of his hat to keep the glare of the sun out of his face.

“...You don’t have to, Kaito. You’re finally about to get the one thing you always wanted, aren’t you?" He puts what swell into it he can, for clarity and certainty and the encouragement that that alone can provide, even as he thinks that what one has to do is deeply beside the point; he's already accepted what may be if his own lack of belief proves justified.

...It's not too great of him, he realizes, assuming Kaito is _wrong._

His words murmur and falter, somewhat. 

“Most of us aren’t so lucky -- knowing what we really want and getting it.”

Kaito chuckles.

Unfazed.

Unsurprisingly.

...It occurs to Ryoma that normally, he’d be able to work up a smile, too.

Hm.

The stick wiggles once more, candy clacking dully against teeth, as Ryoma looks down and over to Kaito again.

“...No reason to forget about Earth, though, while I’m away," he says, eyes light and head fallen to an easy tilt. "Yeah, I always wanted to go to space, but I spent all my time working my way up to today shakin’ up this rock, making memories that’ll last till the end of time…!”

Ryoma doesn’t even smile at that phrasing, and it isn’t a _hm_ this time.

He can't think about it wryly. There's no sad irony in hearing something that innocent.

He simply looks into it as a space too cold and bright; it's _far_ too sincere.

He doesn't want to step into it - it's his job to be over here on _this side_ , and then he realizes, the wire wrapping tighter around his heart and lashing around to squeeze his lungs, too: he _doesn't_ want to assume Kaito is _"wrong"_.

To give him a concession that's only fair and caring, Ryoma _finds_ something to see sadness and irony in, and breathes out a soft laugh.  
"If there's one thing that _I'm_ good at, it's keeping memories."

Kaito belly-laughs, shoulders shaking and eyes shutting for a face more _authentically boyish_ than Ryoma's has ever looked. _That's the spirit_ , he tells him, and that makes it easier for Ryoma; he smirks and grunts out a small, sad chuckle, averting his eyes, while Kaito continues: "Hang in there and don't get _too_ lonely waiting for your _hero_ to come back on shore leave; feel free to think of _me_ every day, too!"

He catches a certain implication in that, but he wonders if Kaito ever really gets lonely, regarding him and the subject halfway through the corner of his eye like a cat watches someone on the other side of the doorway.

It doesn't feel like Kaito is going anywhere, the two of them speaking fairly like they always do, but that helps nothing: even when you _know_ better, after all, it never really _does_ feel like people have gone forever once they've left.

At the end of the day, Kaito has left the school simply as if he had left for another course of camp, and Ryoma stays up all night, staring at the night-blue-cast ceiling with his hands laced behind his head and one leg kicked over the opposite knee.

He doesn't want to fall asleep, and notes that as _part_ of his thoughts. A candy stick clicks again.

He wonders if one has any time to miss others, let alone think about them, when they're in the midst of a _dream_ , even a dream come true.

* * *

Up on a tiny rock in the sky, Kaito bends over, far more gingerly than he is accustomed by nature to moving, feeling himself beginning to tip over even in the weighted boots of his suit. A smile lights up in his face as he picks up a stone; cups it between both hands and lets it sit.

Two spikes protrude from it; in its surface are two round, round pits - a bump in it resembles a nose, and a curve in it resembles a small mouth.

His heart swells as he thinks of a face and mentally superimposes it upon the rock - like he's _projecting a hologram right outta his eyes!_ The resemblance makes him laugh, and he starts for a second, back bending and body undulating in the air as he tries to reiorient himself, realizing that he's floating, but then he tells space _not today_ , biting a determined grin, and regains his balance with a kick. As he turns, he grips the handle of a cart, and lets the stone fall inside, like a marble into a glass of water.

Just in time.

He'd lost track of time totally; according to ground control, this expedition is drawing soon to a close, and while the _thrill and reality_ of it is all still new, being a Luminary _Among_ the Stars, it feels like it's taken forever to find the _perfect_ souvenir to take back home!  
  
The stone lands with a _clack_ he can't hear, on top of a pile of more marked with lines which reminded Kaito of cat-whiskers, or cracks like the bands on tennis balls.

* * *

On Earth, Ryoma watches a TV program in a dark room. Dark-airy ambiance plays, as images of galaxies' colored lights shift across black and a narrator speaks light, yet steady. He reaches beside himself for a glass of water; takes a sip, eyes still on the screen.

He wonders what Kaito is doing now.

Fails to check himself on thinking through a few questions he'll have to ask _when_ he sees him again.

**Author's Note:**

> WHAT DO RAREPAIRS NEED? _LOVE!_  
>  AND WHEN DO THEY NEED IT? _ALWAYS!_


End file.
